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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Christmas Decorations, Advent and a Student Party

A busy week here, as the semester wraps up and we celebrate the end of another successful semester. This Sunday we held a Christmas party of our new house with students from one of our new programs this year.

We had both international and domestic students over, baking and decorating Christmas cookies, drinking hot chocolate and hot apple cider and listening to Christmas music.

Some of the men also watched some football (Go Bears!)

It was a great opportunity for our international students to experience some aspects of Christmas in America-a new cultural experience for some of them. As our house is all decorated for Christmas, I 'm joining Kim over at her great blog Kim's Big Quilting Adventure for a holiday tour of my home:

The N-boy and I purchased a fresh evergreen wreath for our front door at the Farmer's Market.

It smells just heavenly every time we open the door!

Along the staircase we have the Christmas Carol Rubber Ducks-Scrooge, Marley, Tiny Tim and the three ghosts.

Christmas cards are lined up on the built in cabinet.

Our Christmas tree is in the front room in front of our window. We already have presents underneath it!!

And on our buffet table (really used to store DVDs, CDs and extra linens), we have what the N-boy refers to as the "Marriage Tree" (a wedding gift), with some shiny Christmas baubles and candles.

We decorate this sculpture for each season with appropriate things-Christmas ornaments, Easter eggs, Paper mache pumpkins, etc.

We're sticking with our current decorations for this year, and will look for things to decorate the house more next year at the after Christmas sales.

On the festive Advent front, my wonderful swap partner has been so kind to me! I've unwrapped a bag that can be used to make baked potatoes in the microwave.

I can't wait to try it out!

Cute cupcake liners. I love baking cupcakes!

And an adorable pink keychain with a sewing machine charm attached to a yoyo. So cute!!!